THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
which are as often as not covered with saxaul and tamarisk jungle. This 
seems to attract them, for they are found in such vegetation even if it is 
not at a very low altitude ; it probably supplies food and warmth in a region 
which in winter imposes the greatest hardships of hunger and cold. In 
Southern Dzungaria I have seen gazelle in great numbers during the month 
of January, crowded into tamarisk -covered areas, even close to villages 
and nomad encampments. They become quite foolish, not being able to 
see any distance, and on being disturbed move slowly in wide circles. 
Although the gazelle may be chanced upon by any hunter covering a large 
extent of the plains in the right season, the wild ass, or kulon, is unlikely 
to be seen unless a special attempt is made. Considering the trouble 
this entails, it is unlikely that anyone would do so except for scientific 
purposes. The kulon is a rare animal, excessively wild and lives in very 
difficult country. Featureless plains, bitterly cold in winter, waterless 
and sunbaked in summer, are its habitat. The kulon ranges from 
Transcaspia to Balkash and through Dzungaria to the edge of the Gobi. 
We have seen them at the lowest elevation in the heart of the continent, 
and at 7,000 to 8,000 feet above the sea, in localities not very far distant 
from each other. 
These allusions to the arid types of Central Asian fauna might lead the 
reader to suppose that all is desert, but, as a matter of fact, the great sterility 
of the plains is often relieved by the presence of big rivers, which are 
responsible for considerable areas of forest and jungle. The chief of these 
are the Oxus, the Syr Daria, the Ili, the Manas and the Tarim. All are of 
the same type — great waterways flowing slowly across the barren plains to 
their final home in self-contained basins, where they are doomed to evapor- 
ation. Forests of poplars, dwarf oak and tamarisk, jungles of thorn scrub 
and tall reeds margin the banks. On the Oxus and Syr Daria we have seen 
that a peculiar stag has its haunts. On the upper tributaries of the Tarim, 
of Chinese Turkestan, another stag of the same type lives — Cervus cash- 
mirianus yarcandensis , an ally of the barasingha of Kashmir. The Yarkand 
stag, as it is called — for the Yarkand River was the first locality where it 
was discovered — is found on the lower courses of the Kashgar, Yarkand 
and Khotan Rivers, and on the main Tarim. 
These stags are fairly numerous, but very difficult to hunt; in summer 
the denseness of the vegetation and the myriads of mosquitoes form 
almost insurmountable obstacles; while during the winter it is said 
that the ground is very difficult on account of dead leaves and the frozen 
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